Violence Against Women
Source: The Namibian
A tri-partite agreement with the Women for Development (WAD), Unam and the Ministry of Education will introduce a training and awareness creation programme towards the prevention of gender-based violence
into the secondary school levels.
Executive Director of WAD Veronica de Klerk said the agreement is subject to the official approval of Attorney General Albert Kawana, which has not yet been done.
"I am very positive it will be signed," said de Klerk.
Notwithstanding, the programme is aimed at educating young people on the causes and consequences of the endemic gender-based violence perpetrated especially against women and young girls.
The Spanish Embassy in Namibia gave N$1 million towards the programme, which will start with the training of 604 life skills teachers from all 13 regions at the law faculty of Unam that will develop training manuals and do the actual training of teachers.
This training will be incorporated into training at junior and secondary schools, with an envisaged 67 252 learners targeted.
This programme, said de Klerk, is based on a 2006 research study done by the organisation on the root causes of violence with interviews conducted amongst perpetrators in eight prisons across the country.
She said it would bring about new perceptions and meaning to the life skills subject which has been reintroduced into the school curriculum.
She said Namibia finds itself in a serious crisis with rising cases of gender-based violence, forcing organisations to seek new avenues to address the matter head on.
"This abnormality must stop and yet it escalates," she stressed, while bemoaning the critical shortage of social workers to assist with the mammoth task.
Minister Abraham Iyambo said gender-based violence goes against the grain of all principles of humanity, adding that the moral fibre of the Namibian society is disintegrating "in front of us", while criminals show less and less remorse and empathy for their criminal deeds.
He said violence in general ought to be addressed at schools, citing examples of learners going to school with knives and issuing threats, particularly against female teachers.
"We must get the upbringing of boys right," Minister Iyambo emphasised.
Dean of the Unam law faculty said the university will introduce gender law to be part of its syllabus by next year.
The training manual for teachers will, among others, interrogate why the position of women has not substantially improved in a democratic dispensation, as well as cultural values and inheritance laws that continue to treat women as second class citizens.